Conor Kenny
Staff Writer
Something rather unsettling had been greeting the regular log ins to my Facebook account recently. Two articles had been flitting around my newsfeed like grotesque dragonflys, diurnally bumping their repugnant heads against the surface of the screen, refusing to leave me in peace. The two articles in question were month-old publications from yes, you guessed it, The Daily Mail. The first article asserted in no uncertain terms that honour killings were on the rise in Britain, and that Islam was indubitably to blame. Incidentally, the journalist in question signed the name “Daily Mail Reporter” to the piece. Brave, don’t you think? Needless to say I considered it neither a productive nor a morally correct use of my time to read the second article.
Like shock-jock radio hosts, far right journalists have an unappealing flair for targeting the oppressed minorities in our society, and managing to juggle this with a talent for simultaneously presenting anyone who opposes their viewpoint as a “bleedin’ heart liberal”. In a paradoxical way I can’t help but agree unreservedly with the latter accusation. If the global left wing movement had more rigorous intellectuals of the Noam Chomsky variety, and less populist comedic crowd pleasers like Bill Maher, then perhaps we “apologists for Islamic extremism” might have a bit more credibility. We somewhat traduce ourselves to a laughing stock by allowing tremendously uninformed Hollywood Stars like Alec Baldwin to be a spokesperson for leftist ideals. By the same token though, naturally, the neocons could use a few more Francis Fukuyamas and a few less Bill O’Reillys in their midst. Alas, base level political rhetoric and populist outrage is always going to be more appealing to the average observer than detailed academic argument.
And so to the issue at hand. The opinion that has been allowed to form by those of us who are “apologists” for Islam is that one of the more regrettable facts of the faith is the high proportion of honour killings occurring amongst it’s followers. The Western media have been hammering this point home for so long now, unopposed, that it is part of common public perception. Well, allow me to dismantle this fallacy. According to Dr. Sharzad Mojab, Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Toronto “honour killings”, in their current form, have been practiced long before the existence of any major religion. Furthermore, Mojab noted that these type of murders “have no definite connection with religion at all”. I hardly need to say (or pehaps I do) that there is absolutely nothing in the Qu’ran that calls for, or even permits honour killings. Violence, you can find in abundance, and homophobia, one has a smorgasbord of quotes from which to choose.Try, as it might, the Qu’ran can hardly compete with the Bible for sheer vehemence of prose on these matters. Yet in neither text does this barbaric concept of “honour killings” find a spiritual justification.
Next, there is the accusation of us leftists as “apologists for jihadism”. Nobody in any right state of mind is denying the occurance of these crimes. I condemn them as strongly as anyone, and it would be downright abhorrent to play down the horrific nature of such atrocities. I simply take issue with the way they are perceived. The framing of these crimes in a religious context is nothing more than the result of moronic and childlike cogitation. The assignment of a sinister definition to these acts in order to portray them as Islamic barbarism is a Goebbelian trick that we Westerners appear to have fallen for. These murders should be seen for what they really are – violence against women. Take, for example, the definition of “crimes of passion”. This term refers to an attack undertaken in the heat of the moment, without premeditation, usually against a family member or lover who has in some form betrayed the perpetrator. So, basically the same as an “honour killing”, except the guilty party is not religious. Or to put it more accurately, not Muslim. If a Muslim happens to murder a relative based on what is considered by them to be the victims shameful behavior, then it’s classified as an honour killing. If it’s a Catholic, however, as is the case in many Latin American countries, then it’s considered merely a “crime of passion”, and the perpetrator of this manufactured crime is treated in a considerably more lenient manner. In these cases, for some bizarre reason, the religious beliefs of the murderer are disregarded, and the crime is merely put down to something that occurred “in the heat of the moment”. The debate over whether religion is a force for good or evil in the world is a topic of tiresome yet effervescent relevance, but some consistency in the moral outrage from secularists would not only be welcome, but constructive to the argument as a whole.
It is, in many ways, the fault of the left wing academics who have allowed these attacks on Islam to collagulate into such a strong social consensus. Uninformed populists regularly fail to address issues as controversial as this, for fear of being labelled “an apologist for Jihadism”. The fact that these arguments are allowed to be expressed largely without response is almost as shameful as the demagogues responsible for the racist rhetoric in the first place. Perhaps the only way of combating the Bill O’Reillys of this world is by becoming their mirror image. Or, alternatively, we could just tell the truth.
